Oxford+

What would it take for Britain's best ideas to grow into global companies that stay here? In this Oxford+ in Brief episode, host Susannah de Jager puts a set of quick-fire questions to Eva Barboni, Executive Director of Enterprise Britain. Eva describes success as more scale-ups choosing to stay in Britain, creating jobs and reinvesting in their communities, with more Britons investing directly in...

What would it take for Britain to turn promising start-ups into global companies that stay and grow here? In this episode of Oxford+ in partnership with Mishcon de Reya, host Susannah de Jager speaks with Eva Barboni, Executive Director of Enterprise Britain, about the ambition, capital and talent needed to close the UK scale-up gap. Eva explains why public attitudes towards success matter, how de...

What will it take for Britain to turn its research strengths into companies that stay, scale and list at home? Gordon Sanghera takes listeners through Oxford Nanopore's rise and its decision to list in London. Eva Barboni of Enterprise Britain argues for shorter non-competes to free up talent, and Acorn co-founder Hermann Hauser asks how Europe can fund its next generation of global companies. Con...

What are we unwilling to automate away? In this wrap episode of Oxford+, host Susannah de Jager returns to the ten conversations that made up the Ethics and Innovation miniseries and draws out the thread running through all of them. Philosophers, technologists, lawyers, policymakers and social innovators discuss democracy, language and intelligence, care, healthcare, access to justice, and who ben...

What happens when you point some of the world's strongest analytical tools at problems money alone has never fixed? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Juan M Lavista Ferres, Corporate Vice President and Chief Data Scientist at Microsoft and director of its AI for Good Lab. Juan explains how a study of 20 million births...

How can one of the UK's most prosperous counties also hold some of its widest gaps in life expectancy and school results? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Jeremy Long, co-chair of the Oxfordshire Inclusive Economy Partnership, about what an inclusive economy looks like in practice and why averages hide as much as the...

What should AI actually do for us, rather than simply what can it do? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Dr Caroline Green, Director of Research at Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI, about care as one of the defining ethical questions of the AI age. Caroline explains what care means inside a regulated social care sys...

What do you do when the technology arrives faster than the plan you wrote for it? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Professor Anne Trefethen, Professor of Scientific Computing at the University of Oxford and Trustee of the Alan Turing Institute, about leading a university through the arrival of generative AI. Oxford p...

Who really benefits when an innovation ecosystem succeeds? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager talks to Dr Olga Kozlova, Director of Innovation and Engagement at the University of Oxford, about Equinox, Equitable Innovation Oxford, the regional partnership she has helped drive since its launch. Olga explains why Oxford wants to avo...

What if the biggest barrier to justice is not the law itself, but who can reach it? In this episode of Oxford+, part of the Ethics and Innovation miniseries sponsored by Equinox, host Susannah de Jager speaks with Professor Philippa Webb, co-founder of the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice, about whether artificial intelligence can close the global justice gap rather than widen it. Philip...

What do our conversations with machines reveal about what it means to be human? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Professor Edward Harcourt, Director of Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI, about the parts of human life that no algorithm can reproduce. Edward argues that the real risk of chatbots is not that they resh...

What if AI could strengthen democracy instead of concentrating power? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador and former Digital Minister, about civic AI, digital democracy and the practical alternatives to extractive big tech models. Audrey explains why data should be treated as soil,...

What does it really mean to say that an AI system understands, reasons or thinks? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Dr Raphaël Millière, Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, about the deep conceptual questions behind today’s AI systems. Raphaël explains why strong performance on a benchmark d...

Can democracies capture the economic benefits of AI while protecting citizens from the unintended consequences? In this episode of Ethics and Innovation by Oxford+ brought to you by Equinox , host Susannah de Jager speaks with Lord Lionel Tarassenko, founding President of Reuben College and a pioneer of machine learning in safety-critical systems, about why the race to build ever more powerful mod...

How do we ensure technology serves society rather than society becoming subject to technology? And perhaps most importantly, what does progress actually mean? In this special Oxford+ Miniseries, we're going to speak to leading academics, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and practitioners working at the intersection of ethics, technology, and society. Together, we're going to explore questions includin...

What changes when an innovation ecosystem stops talking about problems and starts talking about solutions? In this wrap of Season Four, Oxford+ host Susannah de Jager reflects on a clear shift in rhetoric across the series, from missing pieces of the puzzle to a real sense of momentum in Oxford and the wider UK. She points to initiatives like Equinox, Equitable Innovation Oxford, and the inaugural...

How should we measure success in the place trying to scale Britain's best science? In this Oxford+ in Brief, Dr Ceri Morgan takes on the same four quick-fire questions every guest faces. She reflects on what success would mean after two decades spent at arm's length in investment banking, the advice she would give anyone entering the Oxford ecosystem, and what the city does brilliantly yet struggl...

How should we value a healthcare system that frustrates the very innovators trying to improve it? In this episode of Oxford+, host Susannah de Jager speaks with Dr Ceri Morgan, a doctor turned healthcare investment banker turned patient, about her three careers and what they reveal about UK life sciences. Ceri explains why, for years, companies pitching an NHS-first strategy were handed close to a...

What does success really look like when we get hiring right? In this Oxford+ in Brief, Susannah de Jager puts forward four questions to Riham Satti, co-founder and CEO of MeVitae. Riham describes success as a workplace where people feel they belong, feel empowered, and stay because their work feels like a career worth building. She offers candid advice for anyone entering the Oxford ecosystem, ref...

What if the key to fairer hiring lies not in better policies, but in understanding how our brains actually make decisions? In this episode of Oxford+, host Susannah de Jager speaks with Riham Satti, co-founder and CEO of MeVitae, about her journey from studying neuroscience at Oxford to building an AI-driven platform that transforms workforce decision-making. They explore how cognitive biases shap...

What would it take for Oxford to truly unlock its potential as a global innovation hub and what keeps getting in the way? In this Oxford+ In Brief mini episode, host Susannah de Jager puts four quick-fire questions to Dr Holly Reeve, co-founder and CEO of HydRegen. Holly shares what success looks like if Hydregen reaches commercial scale manufacturing, why Oxford's chemistry department has become...

What does it really take to turn a breakthrough in a university lab into a company that could transform how the world makes chemicals? In this episode of Oxford+, host Susannah de Jager speaks with Dr Holly Reeve, co-founder and CEO of HydRegen, an Oxford spin-out replacing precious metals in chemical manufacturing with bio-based enzyme catalysts. Holly shares her journey from a farm in rural Engl...

What does success really look like for Oxford's innovation ecosystem, and how do you build something that lasts? In this Oxford+ in Brief bonus episode, host Susannah de Jager puts the same four questions to Dr Christiaan de Koning and Michael Collyer, co-founders of Founders and Funders and the team behind the inaugural OX Tech Week. With UK startups raising $7.8 billion in Q1 2026 alone , the st...

What would it take for Oxford to rival Silicon Valley or Boston as a global destination for deep tech? In this episode of Oxford Plus, host Susannah de Jager sits down with Dr Christiaan de Koning and Michael Collyer, co-founders of the Founders and Funders community, to explore how Oxford is organising itself for a new chapter in innovation. What started as a small gathering during COVID has grow...

What would it take for Oxford to become the place where the companies that define global healthcare are actually built? In this Oxford+ in Brief, host Susannah de Jager puts four quick-fire questions to Benny Axt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Oxford Science Enterprises. Benny shares his vision of success for the ecosystem, his advice for newcomers, and a candid assessment of where Oxford excels an...